Playing with future of doctors: SC to govt over vacant NEET-PG seats
NEW DELHI: “You are playing with the future of doctors,” the Supreme Court told the Centre on Wednesday and expressed concern over 1,456 post-graduate medical seats going vacant this year despite the country facing a dearth of medical professionals.
The court asked the Centre and the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) to file an affidavit by the end of Wednesday, explaining why these seats were not filled by conducting an additional mop-up counselling round.
“Even if a single seat is vacant, it should be filled and not allowed to be wasted… If students are not given admission, we will pass compensation orders against you playing with the lives and future of doctors,” a bench of justices MR Shah and Aniruddha Bose told the Centre.
The strongly-worded observations were made while hearing a petition filed by seven doctors seeking a special stray round of counselling for 1,456 vacant medical PG seats that remained unfilled after the last mop-up counselling round for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for Post-graduation (NEET-PG) 2021-22 ended on May 7.
“What will you (Centre) get by keeping the seats vacant? You should have conducted another mop-up round. This is a serious matter concerning the future of doctors,” the bench remarked. Later in the day, the Centre filed an affidavit stating that the delay in counselling was due to the pandemic and no relief could be granted in the present petitions. “The software that was being used for conducting online counselling for 2021 is closed and refund of security deposit for participation in PG counselling 2021 is also initiated,” said the affidavit filed by B Srinivas, assistant director general, DGHS, ministry of health and family welfare.